As I first reported in co-breaking the story about the massive leak of voter records that had been discovered by Chris Vickery, I called the California Attorney General’s Office to alert them to the leak of California voters’ information. The attorney I spoke with on December 21 told me she was immediately forwarding the information I provided, including the IP address of the database, to Robert Morgester, Senior Assistant Attorney General in charge of the AG’s eCrime Unit.
On December 22 and 23, I e-mailed Mr. Morgester to see if I could get an update on what California was doing, but I never got any response to either e-mail.
Today, I’m cautiously optimistic after reading Christopher Cadelago report:
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said Tuesday that his office is working to verify claims that confidential voter information had been publicly posted online.
Padilla said the records were not posted by the California Secretary of State, and that he is collaborating with Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office to provide any necessary assistance. Harris’ office would not comment on a potential or ongoing investigation, to protect the integrity of any probe, a spokeswoman said.
Read more on the Sacramento Bee.
Note that the AG’s office will not state whether or not they are actually investigating. Their policy seems to mirror FTC’s policy of never acknowledging whether they have an ongoing investigation.
So while I’m pleased to see the Secretary of State say they’re working to verify claims and will assist the AG’s office in any way, I suspect California voters would like to know that their government is definitely investigating and is prepared to take action to protect their privacy.
Curiously, the California Secretary of State’s Office did not reach out to me or Chris Vickery to request any evidence or samples or further information, so I’m not sure why the Secretary of State would have to “work” to verify claims. It should be an easy matter to match the records we have against the state’s voter registration database for March 2014. We can give them the exact number of voter records for California in the database, and sample records.
We will reach out to their office tomorrow, of if they see this, they can contact me at [email protected].